Archive for the ‘Works’ Category

Jon Lord’s music continues to trickle into published scores available to buy. Aimed at performers and/or students of Jon’s music, the scores are being meticulously prepared for publication by conductor Paul Mann a close friend of Jon’s.

A brand new score of Jon’s Durham Concerto is nearing publication by Schott Music, but many other works are already available. One is the new piano reduction of To Notice Such Things, Jon’s 2009 suite composed in memory of his friend John Mortimer.

Jon Lord’s signature work, Concerto for Group and Orchestra from 1969, is finally seeing its first-ever print publication. Meticulously edited by conductor Paul Mann, the score has reached its definitive form, representing the final step on its almost fifty-year journey.

The score for Concerto for Group and Orchestra is available now from De Haske Publishing, joined by a newly revised edition of Jon’s Sarabande suite. Order here.

The Concerto first came to life under humble circumstances during the summer of 1969. Late at night after concerts with Deep Purple, Jon would burn the midnight oil as he composed the work straight into full score on large sheets of manuscript paper spread out on the floor of his West London flat. Eventually, his efforts would book-end his career as a composer.

Scores of six of the ten pieces from Jon’s 2004 album Beyond The Notes are already published, and two more have now been added to our list of available online scores.

A Smile When I Shook His Hand (Full score and piano reduction) The Sun Will Shine Again (2004 & 2009 versions) (Full scores and piano-vocal scores)

As with the earlier scores, the only extant source materials were Jon’s often sketchy and incomplete guides intended for his own use in the studio. For these new performing editions, Paul Mann has painstakingly reconstructed the music based on the finished recordings and whatever instructions were left by the composer.

The previously available piano score of Jon Lord’s Sarabande has recently been subjected to a substantial revision. All those who have already purchased the score from our Score Shop are entitled to receive the updated version for free.

As conductor Paul Mann works his way through Jon’s comprehensive output, most new updates to the list of available scores are previously heard pieces already available on CD or album, but here is now a genuine rarity – Sir John, His Galliard – a four-minute piece for piano, 2 violins, viola and cello that was previously kept as a gift among friends.

– It is one of Jon’s richest and most charmingly beautiful short pieces, even though it was only composed for a single performance at a private party. Even under such circumstances, Jon lavished all his care and craftsmanship on it, and what could so easily have become something to be heard once and then forgotten about, is actually a significant composition, says Paul Mann.

Only performed once, at a surprise birthday party for Sir John Mortimer in 2002, the piece remains unrecorded. It was recently found among Jon’s archives and has now been diligently engraved and made available through our Scores Shop.

In celebration of what would have been Jon Lord’s 74th birthday, there are now around 50 scores of his works available via JonLord.org. See the complete list.

Heading the line-up is the newly revised full score of Durham Concerto, one of Jon’s finest orchestral achievements. This new edition incorporates all of the many alterations made by the composer since the premiere in 2007, and was first performed last month in Hagen, Germany.

The full score of Jon Lord’s most famous composition, Concerto for Group and Orchestra, is now available as a pdf print-your-own. Order yours now from JonLord.org’s web shop.

The score reveals the finished work as it was recorded in the studio in 2011-12 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and a cast of guest soloists, such as Joe Bonamassa and Bruce Dickinson, and conducted by Paul Mann.

Jon Lord’s 2012 studio recording (left) and the original 1969 performance of Concerto for Group and Orchestra

Speaking in 2011, Jon explained that he had finally reached a point with the Concerto where he felt it was just right.

– I’ve worked so hard on the score that it’s now in as good a state as it can possibly be in, and therefore I would like to have it recorded, so it can go down in posterity. Since leaving Deep Purple, I’ve played it over 30 times with different orchestras and conductors all over the world, and, of course, in 2000 I did it well over 30 times with Purple on the Concerto Tour, so I’ve been honing the piece live on stage, and I’ve had the opportunity to change things in the score that weren’t sounding quite right.

– It’s a marvelous and exciting prospect to have the definitive recording of the definitive version of the score. I want it to sound absolutely spot on like a great classical orchestral recording sounds. And, God willing, it will sound pretty much like it must have sounded in my head 42 years ago.